Thursday, 26 May 2011

Cape Town to Canada: Beaded Collar

If you read this post from early April, you'll know the backstory of Xhosa collars and remember that I started working on my own version, but didn't think I'd make much progress. Well, once again, the Sew Weekly came to my rescue and hosted Embellish This!, so I really had no excuse to let it languish any longer.

When I was shopping for a beaded collar in Cape Town, I could only find Kenyan wire collars like this...

...which I don't think a white girl in Quebec can quite carry off. I wanted something inspired by, rather than imitation of.

Ta da!

Each of these rows took me about 1 - 1.5hours to do, and I was seriously cheating on the couching. Instead of doing 3 beads / backstitch 2, I did 10+, then backstitched 2. I think it would have taken me years if I had done this properly.

I thought it would look best if I photographed it against bare skin, but then I chickened out and put on this old linen dress.

You could wear this forwards as peter pan collar, but I think I prefer it backwards.

Thanks guys; it's always so great to get some feedback from people who really know what kind of work goes into these things...and Angela, I'm going to refer to The Selfish Seamstress for this one: my time is worth $20/hour, and this takes about 10-15 hours.... haha ;)

Yes, I'm finally on Instagram

I tweet sporadically

I pin cool stuff

Need more email?

Search This Blog

About Me

During the day, I am a mild mannered scientist. During the evenings and weekends, I am an exhausted mom. During my free time, I am teaching myself to sew. In other words, my house is a mess and we eat a lot of pasta.
Contact me at vicki_muise [at] yahoo [dot] ca if there's something too exciting / embarrassing / private to post as a comment.